Does Your Website Run On WordPress? How To Tell

Does your website run on WordPress? Here are some tell-tale signs that a website was built with WordPress.

Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. You could easily tell the difference between the two.

Then WordPress came along and changed all this. Now, it’s becoming harder to tell blogs and websites apart. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of website design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.

(Can You Tell Which Application Your Website Is Powered By?)

For many website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System tool like WordPress and other website-building tools is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, regarding the areas that matter to most website owners, such as web development costs, ease of use, ability to keep the website up-to-date, managing content, etc.

Think about this …

Which of the following options would you choose?

A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that turns out to be quite expensive to build, or

B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking site, but at a cost that is significantly less than the cost of getting site “A” above.

If you decided to go with web site ”B” above, then you need to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress, why WordPress can give you a professional-looking website that will usually cost far less to build than websites built with other website development tools … and how to tell the two types apart!

WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use content management software suitable for all businesses and non-technical users.

Whether your reason for having a digital presence is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a newbie with no programming skills to use, and offers many helpful functions that make your website highly effective when it comes to getting your content published and indexed by search engines, promoting visitor interaction, generating business leads and sales, enhancing your site’s capabilities, etc.

With almost one in every five websites around the world currently being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, your site is also driven by the WP CMS.

And if you don’t have a website yet, or are considering getting a website built, then wouldn’t it be great to show your web developer an existing site with the design and layout that you like, know that it was built with WordPress and that you can, therefore, get a similar site built for your business quite inexpensively?

Is Your Site Built With WordPress?

Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to this page because you’ve heard wonderful things about all of the great benefits and advantages of using WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on WordPress, or some other CMS.

Here are a number of methods you can use to quickly tell if a website has been built with WordPress:

Check The Source Code

If you know how to view the source code of a web page (e.g. Firefox Menu>Web Developer>Page Source if using Firefox, or Google Menu > More Tools > View Source if using Google Chrome), you can look for a tell-tale footprint …

(How to view web page source code using the Firefox web browser)

Suppose that you are surfing the web and you come across a site that you like, and you’re wondering if the site uses WordPress …

First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.

After the source code of the site loads on your screen, you can search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code …

Or using your browser’s “Find” function …

(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)

This will tell you if the site was built with WordPress or not.

Note: If you cannot locate “wp-content” within the source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.

There are other ways to find out if a site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon discuss.

As the point of this post is to try and help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easy ways to check if your web site is built using WordPress other than scanning the source code.

Simply Ask Your Webmaster

While this may seem like the obvious thing to do, a number of website developers, for whatever reason, may build clients a website and not tell them it’s WordPress.

If you have an existing web site and you’re not sure what application is driving it, just ask your developer or whoever built your website if the web site has been built with WordPress.

That was easy, huh?

Okay … what if you can’t get in touch with the person who looks after your site, or what if you’ve come across a website that you really like while browsing the net late at night and you really need to know if it was built using WordPress?

Check Below Footer

If the site uses a WP theme where the theme templates have not been modified, you will typically see a “Proudly powered by WordPress” notice shown at the bottom of the site …

(Powered by WordPress – footer section)

If the methods above haven’t helped you, here are some other ways of telling whether a site was built using WordPress or not …

Online Tools That Tell You If A Website Is Built With WordPress

Here are a couple of online applications that will tell you if a particular website uses WordPress or not …

WordPress Theme Detector by Satori Studio is a free tool that can help determine whether or not a website uses WordPress as its CMS engine; it will also tell you which theme the site is using and provide a link to the theme’s official page.

To use this tool, paste the URL of a web page (it doesn’t have to be the home page) into the ‘Enter website URL’ field and click on the ‘What WordPress theme is that?’ button …

(Enter website URL and click the button)

The Detector will automatically scan the website and output its theme information …

(WordPress Theme Detector displays theme results)

If a website is built with WordPress but the theme is too customized to contain any traces of its origins, the Detector will still let you know it’s a WP site by outputting a message on the right.

(Modified WordPress theme message)

If the website is not using WordPress at all, the tool will also let you know …

If you use a web browser like Firefox or Google Chrome and want to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are powered by WordPress, then Wappalyzer is a useful extension for your browser.

Wappalyzer identifies what software is installed on the sites while you are browsing.

According to their website …

“Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more.”

Wappalyzer is also easy to install and very easy to use.

Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your web browser, icons will appear in your browser menu, next to the site URL identifying which software is being used by the sites you visit …

If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as the above screenshot shows), then the site uses WordPress.

"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum

Disclaimer: This site has no association with WordPress, Automattic, or any of the products discussed on this website. We may derive an affiliate commission from purchases of services or products advertised on our website. All product images remain the copyright of their respective owners and have been used solely for training and illustrative purposes.

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Author: Martin Aranovitch

Martin Aranovitch is the founder of WPCompendium.org and has authored hundreds of FREE WordPress tutorials for non-techies and beginners. WPCompendium.org provides detailed step-by-step tutorials that will teach you how to use WordPress with no coding skills required and grow your business online at minimal cost!
View all posts by Martin Aranovitch

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